Big Sur Jade Co.

Kenny Comello

Sculptures • Carvings • Jewelry • Earrings • Pendants • Specimens • Rough • Ocean Cobbles

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I hitchhiked into the Big Sur as a 19 year old hippy in the Spring of 1970.—– I fell in Love with the land!—— I decided that first day I would stay and live my life here in the South Coast and Jade has helped me do that! I’ve worked and owned several Jade mining claims, dove for Jade in the Ocean for 25 years and I’ve hiked and prospected all over the back hills. Finding new pieces of Jade that no one has ever seen still gives me a thrill!—– Jade has been good to me!

In 1979 I came out of the hills and started the Big Sur Jade Co. in the small town of Gorda, leasing a poison oak covered slope but getting electricity and water in the deal. Up at the mines in order to do any cutting or polishing we had to carry 5 gallons of gas on our backs almost a mile to run our saws and generator.

The shop at Gorda was first set up to process Jade from the mines and from my diving. We set up a 6-foot diamond drag saw to cut the large Ocean boulders and started polishing out small Jade table tops. We soon added rock tumblers, grinders and polishers besides other size diamond saws. Even though we were in the back of Gorda, the word got out and rock hounds started visiting us and buying our stone. —-That was the beginning of the Big Sur Jade Co.

Today, I’m back in the hills with my home and shop cleverly hidden 5 miles up a dirt road. We are open to the public by appointment only. I sell through by web site and by doing two Jade Festival shows a year, one in Big Sur in the fall and the other in Monterey in the spring. Know that what I sell was found within 5 miles from Jade Cove and worked right here at my shop. These are strictly local products from the South Coast of the Big Sur.—–Thanks! —-k.c.